Here's the real kicker: If people back then had wanted more for that 'old junk' (perhaps 2x as much, which would still be an amazing bargain today) then you might have actually bought it. Inside your brain is a little switch that equates price with quality -- the more something costs the better it must be (in every way, including sound and how much others covet it). When everyone collectively percieves something as valueless it's very hard to go against the flow and defy the mentality of the pack. The new digital/16-bit/larger LCD screen stuff all obviously sounded better because it was new and expensive, right?

no ... i was skint. i'd always equated 'synthesiser' with 'out of my price range'. so it was a revolution for me. and you didn't have the web for advice back then, and the people in music shops had a culture of being snotty with customers (you must remember that?). so i'd be popping into those places all the time, trying stuff out, figuring out what i clicked with or not. anything in the upper price range was out. i'd always had guitars before - oh and there, too: i just looked today at some old things that have passed through my hands
the prices have gone mad on old guitars, even non top brand things, as long as they are old. have to say, we had direct access to 'real' instruments then, at knockdown prices. it just wasn't as big a market.

and imagine what the sellers were getting: 1/3 of listed resale value ...

You only have to go back a decade to see a huge inflation. In 2010, I bought a Juno 60 for $750 and a Microwave 1 for $525 (iirc, those were fairly typical prices at the time). Both of those have more or less tripled in nine years.

You only have to go back a decade to see a huge inflation. In 2010, I bought a Juno 60 for $750 and a Microwave 1 for $525 (iirc, those were fairly typical prices at the time). Both of those have more or less tripled in nine years.

The other thing to consider is there are more of us (as in, people who are interested in synths) now then there ever has been. There's more awareness of synths and electronic music and more budding musicians thanks to inexpensive digitial recording, mixing, effects and publishing. Youtube videos and forums bring with them a wider awareness and an inrush of people who are looking for those items. Ebay levels the playing field because there are more people out looking for these items with a full awareness of what they fetch and it's rare for an underpriced bargain to slip through the cracks these days. Sellers also know what people are asking and getting for said items too. That sword cuts both ways.

Call it progress coupled with basic supply and demand rules. They only made so many Juno 60s and there are less of them still working today due to age than there were in it's heyday. As time goes on it will become more expensive for us to keep these old synths going as techs familiar with analog electronics and synths in particular dwindles. Those extra costs will increasingly contrbute to the end sale price of a synth as no seller wants to eat the repair costs to make a unworking synth salable, especially if they are the same or more than the cost of unrepaired synth itself.

I still normalise around 90s prices, in terms of what I think the musical value is for a lot of this stuff. £100 for a Moog Prodigy or SH-101 seems about right to me. £150 for a Pro One. £600-£1000 for a JP8, £300 for a Minimoog, £50 for a TB-303... etc

Obviously today's reality is different, but my brain still seems to dwell in that period...

But I certainly think that today's prices for vintage gear have long since gone past the point of actual musical utility, and are just in fetish/collector territory now.

You only have to go back a decade to see a huge inflation. In 2010, I bought a Juno 60 for $750 and a Microwave 1 for $525 (iirc, those were fairly typical prices at the time). Both of those have more or less tripled in nine years.

In the 90s, USGOV asked banks, why no home mortgages for poor?

Banks said "cuz you make it illegal to knowingly lose depositor money."

GOV said "we'll fix that" and did.

Mid to late 90s GOV asked, "why no homes loans to poor, still?"

Banks said, "it's legal now, but we're not stupid."

GOV replied ,"we will force you," and did.

Banks packaged "tranches" of NINJA loans (No Income, No Job, No Assets) up via derivatives (**** with a bow on it) and SOLD them as "investments", mostly to GOV.

I’ve had a couple things that are much cheaper on those classifieds than I paid for them.... (101 and 909 specifically) but I also sold them for more than I paid for them. All the rest of the things that I own that appear on this list I bought within the last fourteen years and I paid these prices or less (far less in some cases) lol. Prices on everything are much higher now.

Placed it to put things into context, so folks know what music was playin' back then. Similarly why i put Rap Masters. I am a sucker for the early 90's hip-hop and hip-house. Got a tonne of vinyls and always looking for more. So that kinda makes me biased.

On the other hand, you definitely don't want to see clothes and haircuts of the ppl who were making rock and pop music back then.

You know the old joke of someone putting a note on someone's back with the words Kick Me Here and an arrow pointing towards the arse.
Well let's have a virtual version of that note and put it on my virtual back as you read what I did.
Back in the day I sold my Moog Minimoog Model D for $500, yes, $500USD.
In fairness that's how much I paid for it a year earlier, but c'mon..

Is how about I look at the values still, since when I got into synths they were about this range. Tough for me today to get behind the idea of a $$$$ Juno or SH101, etc. If that sounds good to you, cool, but I never found those pieces interesting enough to throw a lot of money at. I remember I could barely give away my Pro One. Just sat on eBay. Finally just had to take it to guitar center.

Interesting the Tascam 688 was £1475...then the value on those tanked to about $200. Now they are getting cool again, about $600-900 seems to be where they ride now. Market all has its ups and downs with whatever is cool at the moment. Will old unreliable synths be cool forever?

Interesting the Tascam 688 was £1475...then the value on those tanked to about $200. Now they are getting cool again, about $600-900 seems to be where they ride now. Market all has its ups and downs with whatever is cool at the moment. Will old unreliable synths be cool forever?

I actually wanted to get one of those a few years back just for kicks.. A couple of my favorite records were actually recorded with one of those but god damn..

Seriously the price on all of those crappy old Portastudios is getting ridiculous. Tapes are dinosaurs now, parts are pretty much gone for those things. I guess the folks buying those up never actually owned one or recorded with one. I still have my 424MK2 here, and I loved that thing sure, but no way in hell am I going to get that out and seriously entertain the idea of recording an album on it nowadays heh.
I should put it up on eBay and sell it for like $300 like Ive seen them going for heh.
I think thats close to what I actually paid for it brand new in 1996/7.

I actually wanted to get one of those a few years back just for kicks.. A couple of my favorite records were actually recorded with one of those but god damn..

Seriously the price on all of those crappy old Portastudios is getting ridiculous. Tapes are dinosaurs now, parts are pretty much gone for those things. I guess the folks buying those up never actually owned one or recorded with one. I still have my 424MK2 here, and I loved that thing sure, but no way in hell am I going to get that out and seriously entertain the idea of recording an album on it nowadays heh.
I should put it up on eBay and sell it for like $300 like Ive seen them going for heh.
I think thats close to what I actually paid for it brand new in 1996/7.

I have a mint Tascam 246 4 track portastudio I got off ebay some years ago for $250(needed a new belt)and every now and then I pull it out and record for nostalgic reasons. Tapes are still available and there is a new company producing high quality tape that rivals the Maxell stuff. I bought a bunch of new stock off ebay some time ago, so I'm good to go.

Ref: the Tascam 688, be careful when bidding or buying. I'd say 90% of the 688's have been beat up real bad and most have issues and more issues because of being mistreated for 25 plus years.

My friend Reginator is an electronic wizard and I gave him my Tascam 644 and yeah the dude got it working perfectly.

I actually wanted to get one of those a few years back just for kicks.. A couple of my favorite records were actually recorded with one of those but god damn..

Seriously the price on all of those crappy old Portastudios is getting ridiculous. Tapes are dinosaurs now, parts are pretty much gone for those things. I guess the folks buying those up never actually owned one or recorded with one. I still have my 424MK2 here, and I loved that thing sure, but no way in hell am I going to get that out and seriously entertain the idea of recording an album on it nowadays heh.
I should put it up on eBay and sell it for like $300 like Ive seen them going for heh.
I think thats close to what I actually paid for it brand new in 1996/7.

Oh yeah all that **** is the rage right now, I blame Alessandro Cortini and other people whose names I forget that put videos up. Tascam 388 was getting cool even before that, from The Black Keys and Thee Oh Sees, etc...now those are over $2k....when I first bought one was about $300.

I had a 688 and a 238 briefly, but I couldn’t get into the workflow, wasn’t straightforward to me...have a weird menu routing system. I ended up selling them to another GS member. Now 388s are my jam, tape is still made and relatively cheap, I know a fair bit about servicing them, and have a tech for more advanced things. Those are a lot of fun. Not very portable though..but I have brought them to gigs before.

Interesting the Tascam 688 was £1475...then the value on those tanked to about $200. Now they are getting cool again, about $600-900 seems to be where they ride now. Market all has its ups and downs with whatever is cool at the moment.

I got mine for free two years ago, just had to get a new motor and belt!

I actually wanted one really really bad, but that thing isn't going to be out before Im dead. I ended up getting an MPC waiting for either that or the 808 to just show up and its doing their job and then some for me.

I still normalise around 90s prices, in terms of what I think the musical value is for a lot of this stuff. £100 for a Moog Prodigy or SH-101 seems about right to me. £150 for a Pro One. £600-£1000 for a JP8, £300 for a Minimoog, £50 for a TB-303... etc

Obviously today's reality is different, but my brain still seems to dwell in that period...

But I certainly think that today's prices for vintage gear have long since gone past the point of actual musical utility, and are just in fetish/collector territory now.

I think they're worth a bit more than that for their musical value and utility, but obviously at the current prices they're showpieces and collector's items rather than musical instruments (though you can of course still make music with them).

About €300 seems reasonable for a mono like the SH-101 or Minimoog, seeing as that's what the Behringer clones cost. That's reasonably the cheapest you can go while still making a profit off them. If you're willing to sacrifice some playability and control, there are even cheaper alternatives out there, but I wouldn't say they're equivalent due to the smaller sizes, reduced number of knobs, simplified envelopes etc.

IMO, there's no analog poly that matches the JP-8 in terms of specs for under €1000. The Deepmind 12 has too limited oscillators (and they're DCO's if that matters), the Minilogue XD has too limited envelopes and modulation routings and is only 4 voices. The Prologue-8 comes across as one of the cheapest polys that matches the JP-8 quite well in terms of specs.

I still normalise around 90s prices, in terms of what I think the musical value is for a lot of this stuff.

I don't understand what you mean by 'musical value'?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mu:zines

£100 for a Moog Prodigy or SH-101 seems about right to me.

IMO it is not an optimal way to look at it.

First off - inflation. £100 in 1990 is £225 today.

Second, those synths were not as much in fashion then, they were coming off the back of the digital takeover, and had limited interest, from electronic music artists. Even then, hardware studios were more expensive in terms of mixing desks etc then, and less people had them.

Third, things like the SH-101 were not 'vintage' then, they were just decade old technology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mu:zines

£150 for a Pro One. £600-£1000 for a JP8, £300 for a Minimoog, £50 for a TB-303... etc

Minis were never £300. £500 was the bottom I think (yess I passed one up at that proce :-/ ). The Mini in the ad on this page is £700, that is £1,577 in todays prices.

TB-303s for £50 is a red herring. Very fiew got them for that price.

There were JP-8s for around £1000 yes. I passed one up around 2005 for that price. Uugh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mu:zines

Obviously today's reality is different, but my brain still seems to dwell in that period...

But I certainly think that today's prices for vintage gear have long since gone past the point of actual musical utility, and are just in fetish/collector territory now.

It is not a supprise. That happens with everything vintage and desirable. Cars, guitars, violins, records, books, anything. The people that grew up desiring the thing from a certain period then grow up and 20 years later can afford to get it. It really shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

BTW there are two Emax samplers in that ad, both for £950. Inflation adjusted, that is £2,141. I bought two of them in the last 10 years, one for £60 and one for £150!

Stock up on working tape echoes while the getting is good, especially the well-known Rolands. When they are asking $2500-3000 for RE-201s that are beat all to **** in five years time you will thank me. No one is making Space Echo clones except for one company that's charging more for their model than a nice working real Space Echo, and they don't even include a reverb tank (which is like $25, FFS).

Unless someone actually starts making Binsons soon (I'm looking at you T-Rex!) then they will become like Bigfoot.

Unless someone actually starts making Binsons soon (I'm looking at you T-Rex!) then they will become like Bigfoot.

Saw one ONCE on eBay maybe 15-16 years ago. Was a later solid state model, looked way different than the good old Pink Floyd Echorecs. Was actually within my meager budget at the time but it was also broken and the guy had no clue if it was even repairable so yeah. First, and last time I ever saw one heh.

Minis were never £300. £500 was the bottom I think (yess I passed one up at that proce :-/ ). The Mini in the ad on this page is £700, that is £1,577 in todays prices.

I remember seeing one listed in London in 1987 for £150, but it was probably beat to hell, I'm not sure because even that was too expensive for me at the time so I never enquired. But yeah, by the mid 90s, Minis were around £600-700 or so.

I posted this in another thread, but here it is again--an ad from the November 1997 issue of Keyboards magazine with a JP-8 that I was considering buying for 2000,- DM (approx €1000).

Who would blame you, everyone did the same. Roland sold it as practically indistinguishable from a classic analogue in the mix and it had all the modern conveniences and none of the servicing and retrofitting issues. They still sell their new models on these premises.

What’s funny is that JP8000s have tons of issues and mechanical failures these days.